World time trial championship: Decraene earns junior title for Belgium

First year junior Igor Decraene scored gold for Belgium in the junior men’s time trial today, racing to victory on the fast, flat 22.06 kilometre course.

Being one of the tipped riders, he was second last to start and scorched around the course in a time of 26 minutes 56.8 seconds, overhauling previous leader Mathias Krigbaum of Denmark. He was 8.66 seconds faster, while Zeke Mostov of the USA took third, 20.97 seconds off gold.

German’s Joshua Stritzinger and the British rider Matthew Gibson finished just off the podium.

Decraene was delighted with the result, describing the experience as ‘the best.’

“I am the champion so I think it couldn’t be better than that,” he smiled.

Asked if he knew the other two riders on the podium, he said he knew Krigbaum would be a big challenger. “Mathias was champion of Europe last year and I knew him,” he confirmed. As for Mostov, he said that their paths had not crossed that often. “He is from America and we don’t have many of the same races, so I don’t know him very well. But I think he is also a good rider.”

Krigbaum had hoped to win but had to be satisfied with silver. “I’m a little bit disappointed…it is always best to be number one.”

Mostov admitted that he exceeded his own expectations, admitting that he had been aiming for a top ten. Netting the bronze medal was therefore a surprise for him.

A total of 84 riders lined out in the event, the fifth on the world championship programme. Sergey Medvedev (Uzbekistan) was first to start and notched up a time of 30 minutes 4.35 seconds, which was beaten right away by that of the rider who went after him, Andrea Enrico Maccagli (San Marino). Soon afterwards, his time of 30 minutes 2.54 seconds was improved by over 40 seconds by Kazakhstan’s Alexandr Voloshin, who in turn was deposed by Artem Nych (Russia).

His time was almost immediately bettered by Mostov, who clocked a time of 27 minutes 17.8 seconds and jumped to the top of the leaderboard. As one of the early starters he remained on top for almost the entirety of the race, but any thoughts of victory were dashed when Krigbaum – who was faster than him at the two intermediate time checks – went twelve seconds faster.

However he too had little time in the hot seat, with Decraene’s pace quicker than everyone and thus securing gold.